


One-Ply Promises

by indraaas



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Demons, F/M, alternate title - the one where lucy realizes she knows way too many demons, contract law is hard but unfortunately demons don't really fall under human jurisdiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-07 09:03:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17957606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indraaas/pseuds/indraaas
Summary: Of all of the stupid shit Lucy has done while drunk, entering a contract with a demon probably takes the cake. The icing on said cake, however, is the fact that neither of the two know what the terms of the contract are. Until they figure it out, Lucy is stuck living with a demon who doesn't really understand the concept of keeping a low profile.





	1. Always Read The Terms and Conditions

He has fucking  _horns._

"Hi." The horned man is sitting on her desk and moving his legs back and forth as if he's on a swing and  _not_ very cheap, breakable material. "I'm looking for someone."

Lucy points towards the door. She is  _beyond_  hungover right now, and frankly, cosplayers hanging out in her room at - she checks her phone -  _nine in the fucking morning_  doesn't begin to make her list of the top ten weirdest things to have gone down in res. It doesn't even make her top fifty, really.

"You know who Lucy Heartfilia is?" Horned-man asks.

Should she call the cops? Probably. Is she going to? Probably not. Lucy bobs her head (bad move, bad move, gravity doubles down for a solid ten seconds  _what the fuck, physics-_ ) and waves at her face listlessly. Horned-man brightens. The blonde feels her stomach roil in response. Ugh. It's way too early to be that chipper for  _anyone_.

"Hi! I'm E.N.D., but you can call me Natsu! I'm a demon. You made a contract with me last night." He hops down and fishes around in his pocket as he walks towards her bed, retrieving a neatly folded square of toilet paper which he holds out to her. She squints. She can make out her signature but the rest looks a lot like her lecture notes when she's doing them half asleep.  _Definitely_ her writing and  _definitely_ illegible.

"I was directed to this room after you signed it and then you showed up later, but you know how drunk people are; you could have been anyone just looking for an empty room to crash! So I had to wait to confirm," he explains. "Now, do you remember what the terms of the contract are? Because I can't read what you've written."

Lucy can't even remember the word for the colour of her walls at the moment, but she can't vocalize that quip thanks to the desert that has made its home in her mouth. She settles for a thumbs down. Horned-man (Naruto? She swears it's Naruto) laughs nervously. "We, uh, might have a problem."

_Besides the fact that I've somehow made a contract with a demon? Wait, what? Demon? Whoa, back up. Demon. Like, actual demon ohmygod what-_

"I can't get back to Hell until I fulfill the terms of this contract."

Oh,  _hell_.

"I'm gonna be stuck here with you," he says. "So, uh. Hi?"

Lucy opens her mouth and her stomach decides that right then is the perfect time to empty itself all over Naruto-demon-dude's white pants. Because what better way to greet her new roommate than with nacho-and-martini flavoured upchuck?


	2. The Juvia Effect

After Naruto-demon-dude depletes her entire supply of make-up wipes cleaning himself off and has donned one of her over-sized sweats and a tank-top that probably belongs to her cousin, Lucy breaks world records dragging him across the hall to Juvia's room.

Juvia is just as hungover as Lucy was an hour ago but by the grace of Red-Bull and an entire box of saltine crackers, the kinesiology major is curled up in a corner studying for midterms and  _not_ currently dying of a migraine.

"Juvia!" Lucy whisper-yells, "We have an emergency!"

"If it's a hangover headache and you need pills, you know where Juvia keeps hers," she mumbles in response. Lucy pushes her textbook out of the way and tugs on Juvia's face so her eyes fall on Naruto-demon-dude's. Juvia's reaction is immediate - she lunges for the metal baseball bat leaning against her desk and swings it at Naruto-demon-dude, who catches and twists it easily. The blue-haired woman blinks for all of two seconds before swinging her ruined bat again.

"No, no, Juvia, he's a demon!" Lucy shouts. Juvia raises an eyebrow incredulously, frozen in the motion of bringing the bat down to rearrange Naruto-demon-dude's skull bones.

"Ok, that needed a better segue."

"'Sup? I'm Natsu." He greets her best friend warmly, as if she hadn't just tried to lop his head off.

"Wait, Natsu?" Lucy says dumbly. "Oh, shit, so it's  _not_  Naruto?"

"What's a Naruto?" Natsu asks. Juvia almost drops her bat and clutches at her chest with a scandalized expression. "Ok, Juvia believes you. You're a demon."

"What, the horns weren't enough?" Lucy inquires.

"It  _is_ almost Halloween…"

"Valid."

Juvia hands the bat over to Natsu ( _not Naruto_ ) and stares at him pointedly. "Juvia doesn't care if you're the devil himself, that bat cost good money and since you broke it, you will fix it." Natsu widens his eyes for all of two seconds before getting to work. Lucy stifles a snicker. Not even demons are immune to The Juvia Effect. She files this away for later use - if Natsu gets too out of hand then at least Juvia can Juvia Effect him into submission; although, she'd probably need a more durable bat.

"So what are you going to do about it?" Juvia asks. "Can you break the contract?"

Lucy hands her the toilet paper and shakes her head. "I've already signed it. I can't read what I've written and he has no idea what the contract is for. He's stuck here until we figure it out. I don't even know what I bargained in exchange. Can you read it?"

Juvia pulls the toilet paper-turned-contract close to her face and squints. She twists it and turns it and pushes Natsu out of the way so she can examine it under her desk-lamp. With every hum that falls from Juvia's lips, and every hollow squeak that the bat emits as Natsu bends it back to a near-perfect state, Lucy feels her heart fall deeper and deeper into the endless void. There's no hope. This is her life now.

Lucy was supposed to go to university, get a good education, become a psychologist, adopt three dogs and three cats, move into a penthouse apartment with Juvia, and live out the rest of their days as high-rolling bachelorettes. She'd built contingency plan after contingency plan and none of them had accounted for  _demonic contracts_ because  _demonic contracts_ are not a thing that happens to successful girls with a GPA of 4.0 and a good credit score. Lucy's hand twitches. If the contract is for something stupid like an even higher credit score or more scholarship money, she will drag her demon straight to hell and fight the person who allowed the contract to be approved.  _There's probably a clause for this_ , she comforts herself.  _They can't just allow drunk people to make contracts with demons. That's taking advantage of people. That's illegal. Does hell even have laws? If they have a hierarchy -_

"Juvia is sorry, Lucy, but Juvia can't read it," the kinesiology major interrupts her line of thought. She hands the toilet paper back to Lucy and braces her weight on one leg. "You should ask Professor Geer. He is your English teacher, no? Probably used to messy writing."

Lucy hugs her tightly. "Oh, you genius, you. You're a lifesaver, J." Juvia pats her back and breaks away to stare at Natsu, who is holding a small ball of fire to the bat. Lucy blinks, pinches her hip twice, and blinks again.

Fire.

He can fucking control  _fire._

"What?" Natsu snaps defensively. "It makes it easier to bend! Anyway, I fixed it. Here ya go. Lucy, when're we gonna go meet this professor person? Fun as Earth is, I ain't all too interested in staying up here in a contract for too long. It gets annoying."

"It's Saturday morning. We have to wait until office hours on Monday," Lucy explains. Juvia snorts loudly. "Good luck, Lucy."

"Why- _oh_ ," the blonde groans. "Oh, fuck me up my  _ass_."

"What?" Natsu asks. He looks back and forth between the look of 'put-me-out-of-my-misery' that Lucy has on her face, and the amusement on Juvia's before poking Lucy. "Lucy. Lucy. Luuuuuuucy. What? Why do you wanna get fucked up the ass?"

"You're living with her. In her room. In close quarters. Where are you going to sleep?" With every question Juvia asks, her grin grows wider and wider and Lucy has never wanted to strangle her more.  _She's your best friend, homicide is illegal, she's your best friend, murder is wrong, she's your best friend…_

"I'll be sleeping on her bed, duh," Natsu says in the same way that one might when asked what the colour of the sky is.

Natsu is unaware of how close he has come to death, Lucy decides. Because if Juvia was not nearby to hold her back and kick her brand-spanking-newly-fixed bat under the bed, Natsu would be missing several key pieces of his anatomy vital for the walk back to her dorm room.


	3. Hypotheticals

The only good thing to have come from Natsu moving in with her is the fact that Lucy has rediscovered her love for the library. Spacious, quiet, and with secluded corners perfect for studying and  _accidentally_ falling asleep in.

"This is starting to get unhealthy," Juvia comments one day. "Have you considered asking Natsu to find someplace else to sleep?"

Lucy pulls her fluffy blanket over her head and sinks into the beanbag she has occupied for the past two nights. "Yeah, that would tide over well. Where the hell is a...uh... _you-know-what_ supposed to find a house? He has  _horns_ , Juvia. And weird scales. And pink hair. Very not normal things that are going to draw in attention. We don't need attention. We need, like, God."

"What if you ripped up the contract?" Juvia suggests. "Would that render it void? So you can go back to your room in peace. Hang on...Mest!" Juvia shouts, waving at the man in question. "Mest! Juvia has a question!"

Mest Gryder, a third year law student and friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend, takes off his reading glasses and waves back. "Yeah?"

"Hypothetically, if someone has signed a contract is it still valid if it's been ripped?" Juvia asks.

"Yes. Contracts are binding documents, so if someone hypothetically ripped theirs to invalidate it then the second party can sue the first on grounds that the contract hasn't been fulfilled and was breached. If  _both_ parties decide to tear their contracts, that probably implies that there was a mutual agreement reached, so that would render it null," Mest explains in a clinical tone. He pauses and adds, " _Hypothetically_ , of course. Why? I mean, why was this hypothetical question...posed?"

"Hypothetically, a friend of Juvia's entered a contract while drunk and has no idea what s- _they_ exchanged."

Mest rolls his eyes. "Then,  _hypothetically,_ if you can prove the person was intoxicated beyond belief, the contract is voidable. To make a contract both parties need to agree to the terms and the consequences, and there also needs to be an exchange of goods. If you're drunk, you violent the first clause of contract law." He slips his glasses back on and turns to his textbook once more. "But this is entirely hypothetical because this  _never actually happened,_ right?"

"Very hypothetical." Juvia nods gravely. "So hypothetical, in fact, that this conversation  _never happened_."

"We were having a conversation? I was just telling you to stop yelling in the library."

By the time Juvia turns to Lucy, the blonde has her bag slung over one shoulder and her fluffy blanket wrapped around her like a cape. "Let's go, we have a contract to void!"

* * *

Lucy returns to find Natsu lounging on her bed and flipping through her most expensive textbook from last semester with cheeto stained fingers (claws?). She picks up the closest hardcover - the DSM-5 - and whips it at his head so hard she's amazed it doesn't crack his skull in half when it collides. Natsu yelps and yanks at the page he's touching, causing it to tear clean in half. If her blood pressure wasn't high enough before, Lucy is almost certain she's just hit red-zone levels. Her face is so hot she swears the air around her is starting to warm.

"We need to void this contract," Lucy snaps. "Preferably before I kill you."

"I'm immortal, but give it a shot," he says cheekily. "What do you mean by 'void the contract'?"

"I asked a friend and he says that if neither of us want to be in this contract then we can both agree to void it and just...walk away." Natsu laughs and snaps her book shut. He's the very picture of ease as he stretches out and wags one of his claws (fingers?). " _If_ we both agree. I still have a stake in this, yeah? You  _owe_ me something and I  _always_ collect. The only one who wants out is you."

Lucy can barely hear Juvia's protests over the blood pounding in her ears. She wants to walk over and rip off every last black scale that decorates his smug little face until all there is is a pattern of bloody flames licking up his jaw and neck and the corners of his eyes. God, she hates the fucking smile on his face; the desire to punch his lips until they're unrecognizable settles under her skin like an itch that can never be scratched. Her body shakes violently and she can feel her nails break the skin of her palms.

" _If you can prove the person was intoxicated beyond belief, the contract is voidable. To make a contract both parties need to agree to the terms and the consequences, and there also needs to be an exchange of goods. If you're drunk, you violent the first clause of contract law."_

"The contract was illegal!" Lucy blurts out. Natsu raises an eyebrow and his grin slips a little. Ice cold victory flushes through her veins and replaces her fury with what can only be described as satisfaction. She has a trump card and  _he cannot walk out of this one._ "I was drunk. To make a contract I need to have been of sound mind because the first rule of making a contract is having  _both_ parties consent to it and agree to the terms.  _You_ may have but  _I_ did not."

 _Take_ that _, you smug son of a bitch_ , she adds silently. Behind her, Juvia cheers.

Natsu laughs again. The sound sends a shiver down her back and  _not_ in a good way. He slips off the bed and walks over, shaking his head the whole while. Lucy's stomach flips with every step he takes towards her.

The demon looms over her, casting her in his shadow. He lifts his arm and tilts her head up with one claw, meeting her wary gaze with amusement. Every survival instinct Lucy has is screaming at her to run but she's frozen in place. Every attempt at movement is met with resistance from her muscles. Lucy tries to open her mouth but all that escapes is a choked little gasp that squashes her earlier confidence. Is this  _him_? Is his presence doing this to her?

"Do you think Hell cares about your petty human laws?" he purrs, leaning in close so she can smell the junk food on his breath. "If we had to revoke every contract made over some stupid mistake made by demons and humans alike, we would be out of business. The point is, Lucy, that drunk or not, you signed a contract and I was the one selected to carry it out. No matter what you say or do, your soul is  _mine_."

For one second, all she sees is white and then her hand is burning. It takes a minute before her eyes focus and the first thing she sees is Natsu's stunned expression. She's semi-aware that the hand that is burning is crossed over her chest, as if she had just -

Oh.

_Oh._

"You slapped me," Natsu states in disbelief. "You  _slapped_  me." He repeats it as if saying it again will make the situation more real for him. Lucy revels in the bright red mark she's left on his cheek. Deep down, she prays it bruises.

"That hurt, Lucy," Natsu whines. The rate at which he can switch from petulant five year old to smug demon and back is alarming. "Why are you so  _violent_ today? First that book, now this slap...can I ask this friend of yours if it's ok to sue you for abuse?" He's  _teasing_ her. The little bastard is teasing her after crushing her very being and effectively killing her chance at freedom.

"I hate you," Lucy spits out as venomously as she can. "I cannot  _wait_ to talk to Professor Geer tomorrow so we can figure this out and I never have to see you ever again so long as I am on this Earth."

Natsu laughs again. It has every hair on her body rising;  _God_ she hates that sound now.

"Ok, Lucy." He smiles at her in the same way that a best friend might after revealing good news. "Whatever helps you sleep at night."


	4. Patience is a Virtue

Monday rolls around and Lucy swears the day is going slowly  _just_ to spite her. Her third, and final, class of the day is one of her core psych courses and her notes are a mess by the end of it, so she decides to go and grab an extra large black coffee with a quad shot of espresso because if she feels like she's dying, she may as well stick her other foot through the door and see if caffeine overdoses are entirely possible.

Death is the least of her problems. Lucy is ready to look death in the eye and break his nose if it means she doesn't have to find a way to drag her  _horned, scaly, pink-haired demon_ to Professor Geer's office without the entire campus noticing the horns. Or the hair. Or him in general.

"You can control fire but you can't illusion away your horns?" Lucy asks. Perched on his regular spot on her bed with yet another one of her textbooks ( _Abnormal Psychology_ ) in his clawed hands (fucking Christ, she'd forgotten the claws; how the fuck is she supposed to hide claws?), Natsu shakes his head in time to the turn of the page.

"Nope. I could've learned. Just never had a need, you know?" He smiles up at her toothily, baring his ridiculously sharp teeth. "You'll figure something out!"

"Short of calling a priest to exorcise you?" Lucy mutters under her breath. She checks her phone again and groans. Her appointment with Professor Geer is in fifteen minutes. It takes  _ten_ minutes to walk to his office. How the hell is she supposed to find a disguise for all of Natsu's demonic features in under five minutes?

Lucy glances around her room wildly, looking for  _anything_ that can help. Every second that passes is another second lost and time is precious when trying to get rid of a demon. It doesn't help that Lucy is  _horrible_  at dealing with time-sensitive tasks. She can feel her heartbeat pick up pace and pound against her ribcage with a force akin to horse hooves against a race track. The beats flood her ears and all she's left with is her increasingly blurry vision. The colours of the walls bleed into her posters and the oil painting she'd bought-

Oil painting.

"Natsu, let's go!" Lucy grabs her keys and nearly snaps her doorknob off in her haste to get out. The demon obliges and crosses the room in two quick strides.

"What about the whole illusion thing? How's doing nothing a disguise?"

"It's totally a disguise. Trust me."

* * *

To Lucy's relief, nobody actually questioned Natsu's appearance because this is university and nobody cares. To be on the safe side, Lucy had made sure to enter the art building from the back and exit through the front so people mulling around near the English building across the street just assumed he was an art student and left him be.

The walk through the English department's winding corridors is mercifully silent and  _short_  because Lucy knows the layout like the back of her hand. Natsu doesn't appear to care much for hanging around and poking the giant thesis posters dominating the walls like most newcomers do, so  _that's_  a plus.

Lucy knocks three times on the door with printer paper taped to the front that reads 'Mard Geer' in black shapie and taps her foot impatiently. She debates knocking again but forces her hand behind her back. She will  _not_ be that person. Patience is a fucking virtue and if she's living with a demon who is the embodiment of the deadly sins, then Lucy will damn well make sure she becomes the poster-girl for the heavenly virtues. Spite is a beautiful motivator.

"Mard...Geer," Natsu reads the name slowly. Lucy raises an eyebrow at his somewhat perplexed expression. "What, have you done contract work for him, too?"

"No, it's...nevermind, there's no way."

_Patience is a virtue, Lucy, you can't murder the immortal demon who is purposefully being cryptic to fuck with your head. You can torture him because he won't die. You can be patient while torturing someone. Yeah, see? Go Lucy, look at you being such a smarticle particle!_

"Miss Heartfilia." Professor Geer opens his door and stares down at her with bottomless black eyes. "I assume you are here to discuss your paper." He stiffens when Natsu shifts behind her. In a swift movement, Lucy is pushed into the office behind Professor Geer and against the now closed door, and Natsu is sent flying into the nearest bookshelf. Thorny vines burst out of the ground like drills, wrapping around the demon's arms and legs and effectively immobilizing him.

"Miss Heartfilia,  _what have you done?_ " Professor Geer hisses. His eyes are fixed on Natsu, whose attempts at burning the vines off are met with strange blue bursts of chunky script in a language she's never seen before.

"T-the vines weren't me!" Lucy stutters, waving her hands around. "I-I swear! There's no - I'm not - vines? I-"

"No, you idiot girl, I meant the demon. I am well-aware that the vines were not your doing. They are  _mine_."

"What the fuck?" Distantly, Lucy can see her average in the class drop by about ten percent for her outburst.

"You didn't tell me your prof was  _him!_ " Natsu whines. He's given up struggling...for now. Lucy flinches at the sight of his blood dripping onto the hardwood floor. Some of those gashes seem  _arterial_ , for Christ's sake. He had to have a limit.

"What is E.N.D. doing with you?" Professor Geer - Mard, she supposes she can call him in her head - demands.

"I contracted him while I was drunk and we don't know what the contract is because we can't read my writing so I was wondering if you could help? Also, can you explain how you two know each other? That would be great." Replying to his question before asking her own counts as being patient, right? She has this thing in the  _bag_.

Mard pins her with the same blank look he uses with undergrads asking stupid questions. "You...Miss Heartfilia, I am torn between having you institutionalized or letting this mess carry out as is. Being in E.N.D.'s presence is almost punishment enough."

"He's the king of hell!" Natsu chirps up. "Mard Geer Tartarus! Wait, what do you mean being near me is punishment enough? Oi!"

It's the coffee from earlier. Acute caffeine overdose leading to vivid hallucinations. Either that, or this is a really,  _really_ bad salvia trip.

In retrospect, this kinda makes sense. Mard  _has_  always held the moniker of Satan amongst his students, both in reference to his insanely difficult methods of marking, and his soulless eyes. Her cousin will be pleased at this development. After him spending two years trying to prove Mard to be a vampire or demon of some sort, Lucy's first, completely unintentional, attempt is fruitful.

"Lucifer?" Lucy squeaks. She's never been particularly religious but she finds herself scrambling to remember prayers from Sunday School. He hasn't killed her  _yet_ but who's to say he will let her live after his secret has been exposed? Bargaining for her life seems appropriate. She can see it now - after begging him to spare her, she's sworn to secrecy. Letters will arrive in the mail and find her wherever she goes, and every letter will read  _remember our little secret_ in the fanciest script possible. Maybe she'll even be cornered by lesser demons and be reminded of her promise, like mobsters do on those dramas Juvia likes watching on TV.

"No. I...nevermind. It does not matter. What  _does_ is this contract." Mard snaps his fingers and Natsu is released from his confines. "Clean yourself up, E.N.D., you're dirtying my floor."

"You broke the floor! Not me!"

"I do not care."

Their interaction flows with a practiced ease. The dynamic is that of a rebellious student and a bored master. Lucy wonders how many times they've had a similar conversation. She wonders how many times Mard has made Natsu bleed. She wonders how many times Natsu has fought back.

She wonders how many times Natsu has succeeded.

"Seeing as how E.N.D. has done my introductions for me, I shall get to the crux of the issue. I will look over your contract for you and see to it that appropriate action is taken. Until then, E.N.D. is in your care." Mard holds out his hand and a circle of the blue chunky script from before flashes briefly and deposits a book in his grasp. " _This_ is the Book of E.N.D. Consider it your insurance policy."

"Oi!" Natsu snarls. His black scales are molten red in the edges. "You can't fucking give my  _book_ to a human!"

"I just did," Mard says. "Your scales are turning red, calm yourself. Speaking of scales, did you not think to cast a disillusionment spell over yourself?"

"I dunno how to do it," Natsu says. He crosses his arms over his chest and puffs out his cheeks childishly. "'sides, I  _hate_ those things. My horns always bump into shit even when they're hidden."

"Then I will find you an appropriate substitute seeing as you are incapable of casting a D-rank spell."

D-rank spell? Is this like Harry Potter, then? Do demons have to undergo formal demon schooling to learn magic? Lucy snorts at the mental image of a group of children with similar demonic features seated at desks and doing math homework. Maybe little demon children are assigned to develop math questions to slip into human lesson plans as part of their evil training. Maybe little demon children developed the MCAT.

"-bastard!" Lucy shakes her head and catches the tail end of her contract demon's rant. "You're such a pain in the ass," Natsu scowls. "Lucy, let's go. If I spend another minute in the same room as him, I'm gonna die."

A slow smile pulls at the corner of her gloss-covered lips.

"Actually, Natsu, I have several questions for Professor - sorry, Dr Geer regarding my paper. This could take a while."

_Patience is a virtue, Natsu._


	5. Everything is a Lie

Natsu's book remains untouched on her desk for three days before Lucy feels comfortable enough to open it.

The cover is intricately carved with the words 'E.N.D.' and various flames that lick up the corners and spiral together to form a circle with odd designs lining the inside. Lucy traces the grooves and shivers. Is this  _magic_ , then? This odd sense of static in her stomach and the dip of her spine? Or is it just her nerves getting the best of her?

"It's not gonna kill you, you know," Natsu calls from his regular spot on her bed. He's flipping through her calculus book today.

"It  _might_ ," she grumbles. "How can I trust you? I die and you get my soul. This works out in your favour."

"Because all it is is my  _book_. It just has, like, my essence and shit trapped in it."

Lucy turns around in her seat to face him. "Explain."

"Every demon has a book, no matter how low-leveled it is. It chronicles their life or whatever. Mostly has shit about summoning the demon, but also how to seal it again just in case. Mard has access to all of the books, but legion leaders can use them, too. Only for the demons in their legion, though, and they gotta fill out a why they did it form after," Natsu says in one breath. Lucy leans back, deep in thought. So there  _is_ a hierarchy to hell. More militaristic than she had imagined, but it exists. Where does Natsu fall in the grand scheme of things, then? He seemed close enough to Mard that he could banter with him, but is he a legion leader or just a special case?

"What does E.N.D. stand for?" Lucy asks.

"Etherious Natsu Dragneel."

"Your first name is Etherious?" Natsu drops her textbook and bursts into laughter. Lucy squirms in her seat, feeling as if she'd just committed a demon faux pas. How is  _she_ supposed to know about demonic etiquette? She's only just learned the bloody things  _actually exist_.

"Etherious is the type of demon I am," Natsu explains once he calms down. "We're a special type of demon, so we get the title 'Etherious' put before our names."

"So you have the King, Mard Geer, then the legion leaders, then Etherious, and then regular demons?" Lucy asks. Would it be rude to write this all down? She's an academic first, after all.

"Kinda. We got the King and then the Nine Demon Gates, which are Mard's closest demons. They're like...Etherious, but they got something else mixed in 'em that makes them  _not_ Etherious. It's hard to explain. Then after  _them_ come the legion leaders, who are both Etherious and regular demons, and then the rest of us just fall in after. I ain't a legion leader, but I will be one day," Natsu declares. There's a fire in his eyes that she's only ever seen in grad students talking about their research. The kind of drive that has existed for years and is almost,  _almost_ ready to be released in one final burst of  _I fucking did it_. How long has Natsu wanted this for? The time a grad student waits is a blip for an immortal like him. How many lives must she live to be able to compare?

Lucy nods and turns back to his book.  _Like a band-aid_ , she tells herself, and she flips open to the first page.

The letters aren't in a language she's ever seen before. After a second, she recognizes them as being similar in style to the ones that had appeared in Mard's office. Lucy scowls as she continues to skim through the book, looking for  _anything_ she might understand. There aren't even any pictures to help out. Her annoyance settles under her skin like an unreachable itch, only made more aggravating by her demon's vocal amusement.

"You could at least  _help_ ," she hisses. Natsu's dark eyes brighten. "Do you wanna rearrange your contract so you can use it to get me to read the book for you?"

" _Hell no._ "

"You're no fun, Lucy." He pouts.

" _Life_ is no fu-" Lucy is cut off by a series of raps at the door. Her stomach drops and her heart starts pounding so loudly that it drowns out the next knock.

" _Hide_!" Lucy squeaks, scrambling for the door. Natsu is right behind her, to which she responds by pushing against his chest. "What part of 'hide' don't you understand?" she snaps. His muscles are unyielding under her hands, a concrete wall that refuses to budge.

Narsu opens her door and exclaims, "Ryos! Dude, it's been  _forever_!"

"What the  _fuck_ ," Rogue Cheney states. Beside him, Sting Eucliffe pales so drastically that, for a split second, Lucy is concerned he'll pass out from lack of circulation.

"Lucy, what's a demon doing in your room?" Her cousin finally demands, pushing everyone in and slamming the door shut. Sting pulls Lucy as far away from Natsu as possible and pins her with panicked blue eyes. "What did you do?"

"She contracted me while drunk, now we gotta figure out for what," Natsu calls out cheerfully before he turns back to Rogue, who has black tattoos crawling up his cheeks-wait, black tattoos? Lucy does a double take and takes in her cousin's boyfriend carefully. He's dressed casually in jeans and a plain shirt, but his normally unmarred skin is now teeming with sharp lines that paint an oddly soothing picture to Lucy, who follows them from his arm all the way up to his forehead

_Rogue's a demon?_

"And you're letting her follow through?" Rogue snaps. "That's low, even for you."

"Mard don't mind. You know he's a professor here?" Natsu says eagerly, stepping over and grabbing Rogue's shoulders. Sting lets out a low squeak and clutches Lucy's arms tighter.

"Yes, I know. I'm a  _student_ here, you idiot." Rogue pushes him off and faces Lucy. "My apologies for him. Natsu is arguably one of the dumber ones."

"I take offense to that," Natsu mumbles. "I've been reading her books, you know."

"You're a demon?" Lucy points at Rogue. When he nods, she whips her head back to Sting, who cowers under the full force of her glare. "And you  _know this_?"

"I'm contracted to him," Sting offers up. Lucy pushes out of his grasp and laughs hysterically, backing into the nearest wall.

"You're a demon!  _Everyone_ is a demon! I can't believe this! Am  _I_ a demon? I mean, shit, if  _Rogue_ is, then I might as well be!" She's starting to devolve into a blubbering mess but she can't find the will to care. Not when everything she has accepted as true is a lie. Natsu being a demon she can handle. Mard she can understand.  _Rogue_? The same Rogue who once drank an entire gallon of chocolate milk to prove a point? The same Rogue who became a biochemistry major in hopes of developing vaccines to help prevent as many diseases as possible?

And Sting  _knew_?

"Nah, you're human-oof! Ow, that hurt, Ryos!"

"My human name is  _Rogue_ , you dipshit. And she was being rhetorical." The brunet levels her with his red eyes (oh, that should have  _definitely_ been an indicator from the start. How many other clues had she just ignored?) and smiles thinly. "I understand this is...a shock."

"That doesn't even begin to cover it."

"But now that we know, we can help," Rogue says over Natsu's loud complaints. "Tell us  _everything_."

"Good thing I bought the booze!" Sting pipes up in a false cheer. Lucy snags a plastic shopping bag from him and procures a large blue bottle of vodka.

Perfect.


	6. Fundamentals

_**Sting Eucliffe** _ **created the group.**

_**Sting Eucliffe** _ **added** _**Rogue Cheney** _ **.**

_**Sting Eucliffe** _ **added** _**Lucy Heartfilia.** _

_**Sting Eucliffe** _ **added** _**Juvia Lockser.** _

_**Sting Eucliffe** _ **named the group "The Pink Problem".**

**Sting Eucliffe:** ok so this is the official group for this fuckery, anybody have mard's number so we can add him?

_**Lucy Heartfilia** _ **added** _**Mard Geer.** _

**Mard Geer:** This is undoubtedly one of your dumbest ideas to date, Eucliffe. Heartfilia, inform E.N.D. that I have found an adequate object to magick. It will be available for pickup by Friday.

 **Lucy Heartfilia:** thank you so much! Natsu says hi!

 **Juvia Lockser:** I thought we agreed on no group chat. If somebody gets into our phones they'll think we're nuts.

 **Rogue Cheney:** Have you ever tried to argue with Sting? The idiot gets an idea and suddenly there's no other option. Why do you think he's pursuing a physics degree?

 **Sting Eucliffe:** fuck off. Anyways we should get this shit started so this is where we're gonna discuss all the bullshit that goes on about this situation. If we find anything that can help w this...thingamabob then we'll send it over.

 **Mard Geer:** I see that your vocabulary is still as atrocious as it was when you took my class last year, Eucliffe.

Lucy enables the 'do not disturb' function and sighs. Her phone will probably crash when she turns on her notifications again, but it's small price to pay if it means she doesn't have to sit through Sting spamming the chat with wall texts.

"I'm bored," Natsu announces. Lucy ignores him in favour of flipping to the next page of her notes. With her first midterm in exactly a week, it will literally take nothing short of the gates to hell itself opening up in her room to even get her to  _move_. Her grip on her pencil tightens when Natsu hops off her bed and shuffles over to her.

"Luuuuucy." Poke. "Lucy, I'm bored." Poke. "Come on." Poke. "I wanna go explore. I'm booooooooored." Poke.

Lucy shoots a dirty look over her shoulder, trying to set him on fire by sheer annoyance. He doesn't spontaneously combust, to her disappointment, but smiles brightly, his lips pulling back to reveal pearly white teeth and sharp, deadly looking canines. Vampire fangs, as she and Sting used to call them growing up.

"Do you drink blood?" she blurts out suddenly. It takes less than half a second for her to clap her hands over her mouth in a weak attempt to hide her mortified squeak. Natsu reels back, somewhat taken aback.  _Shit_ , is this another one of those demon faux pas? Is it even appropriate to ask a demon about the specifics of their...demonicity?

"No, what the hell?" he replies. "I'm a  _demon_ , not a fuckin' vampire."

Lucy's jaw drops. "Wait, vampires  _actually exist_?"

Natsu shrugs, scratching the back of his neck. "Yeah. I haven't seen one in a couple hundred years, now, but they are  _real_. I mean...legally they  _do_ count as a subset of demons, I think, but it's one of those laws nobody really gives a shit about."

"You should write a book about this," Lucy says. Natsu scoffs, to which she responds by flicking his bandaged arm lightly. "Seriously! It could be helpful to those of us who are contracted to a demon! You know, like…'Demonology 101'."

"Not every human has your writing, so we normally don't stick around long enough for our contractees to get curious about us," Natsu says. His tone, teasing at first, goes flat as he continues, "There's no point in ever explaining ourselves to you. We enter a contract, it gets fulfilled, and I come back when you die to collect your soul. That's all there is to us."

Lucy shivers. There it is again. She won't go as far as to call whatever it is nihilism, but there's something about the bland finality to his statement that makes her think that maybe, just maybe, Natsu is teetering on that thin line. He does a good job of hiding it behind big smiles and a cheerful disposition, but then there are moments when  _this_ happens; when she says something and something in him  _cracks_ just long enough for her to see that he's not really there. That he's not been  _there_ for a while.

Perhaps it's a safety mechanism. His way of distancing himself from the humans he has to take to hell. She can't imagine it gets any easier over the years, listening to them beg for mercy.

"What about Rogue and Mard?" Lucy asks. She folds her arms over the back of her chair and props her chin on them, peering up at her demon curiously. "Rogue is in a relationship with Sting, and Mard interacts with thousands of people a day. If they can see that there's more to dealing with humans than just collecting their souls, why can't you?"

Natsu laughs shortly, dropping to a crouch and bracing his elbows on his knees. He mirrors the tilt of her head and says, "Do you really think this is the first time a demon has gotten together with a human? Your cousin will die, Ryos will collect his soul and forget about him in a few decades. We're immortal. You humans are just insignificant blips in our lives."

"In the short term sense, maybe. Sure we've not changed your worldviews, or whatever it is is, but in the long run, I think we do affect you. If we're so...insignificant, as you put it, then how is it that, aside from your appearance, you could totally pass for some random teen on the street? You speak modern English, you swear, and you can read my textbooks. Those are things that have happened because of human influence."

"I've had to pick up on them to interact with you people now. It's hard to carry out contracts when you can't communicate with a person in the way that they'll understand."

"So we're not insignificant, then," Lucy challenges. "If we've managed to force you to adopt modern day habits or tics, we've changed you."

"Not fundamentally," he points out. "Those things would still happen to you if you moved to another country, for example."

"But it's still change. Insignificant to you, maybe, but it's change."

Natsu shakes his head. "You...are a stubborn woman."

"So I've been told." Lucy smiles triumphantly.

* * *

"I'm gonna do the laundry, gimmie your clothes," Lucy says. Natsu, perched on her bed with another one of her books, snorts.

"You got anything else I can wear?" He waves his hands over himself. Lucy realizes belatedly that he's still wearing the tank top and sweatpant combo from earlier that week. She wonders if her eyes are twitching as violently as she feels they are - given her demon's visible amusement, they probably are.

"You've been wearing the exact same set of clothes  _and lying in my bed for over half a week_?" she hisses.

"Yep."

Her vision goes blindingly white and her head fills with fuzz for what seems like an eternity. She has been sleeping in the same bed that he spends almost the entire day in. He hasn't even  _showered_. God knows what kind of bacteria he's carrying that has been transferred over to her. She could have a skin disease, for all she knows. A horrid, evil, demonic skin disease that will give her matching scales.

Ignoring the itch that settles deep into her, Lucy shakes her head and grabs her shower bucket and a fresh towel. "Come on, you need to shower. Now."

* * *

Lucy shoves Natsu into the shower stall furthest from the door and double-checks to make sure the room is empty before closing the curtain and pressing the little magnet at the bottom to the strip.

"You're gonna stay in here and watch?" Natsu teases. "Lucy's a  _pervert_."

She scowls and rips the towel off his head with more force than necessary, taking pleasure in his startled yelp.

"No, genius, there's another curtain here." She tugs at it. "It separates the section meant for the shower and the section meant to dry off. I'll sit on the bench and wait for you to finish, and then we  _book it_."

Natsu nods and pulls the curtain shut. The showerhead sputters to a start and she laughs softly at his curse.

"'s not funny," he says. "Why the  _hell_ is this so cold?"

"It's university, what do you expect out of the showers?"

"This is totally a human rights violation. You should sue."

"Nah. Too much time. Give it a few seconds, it'll warm up."

They fall into silence soon after, the only sound being the steady stream of water and the occasional  _plop_ of shampoo being rinsed from his hair. Lucy closes her eyes and braces her head on her knees. The heat from the water blankets her in a haze of exhaustion. She can't remember the last time she had felt this loose and lazy…

The bathroom door swings open and Lucy's heart stops.

"Who's in here?" The person calls. It takes her a second to place the voice - Jenny Realight from down the hall.  _Of all of the goddamn people in the world, it just had to be the nosiest one of all,_ Lucy grouses.

"It's Lucy!" she shouts after a second. "Is this Jenny?"

"Yeah! How you doin', girly?" Lucy hears her enter the stall to her right and panics. If she looks between the crack in the bottom of the stall, she'll be able to see Natsu's tanned legs and then the whole thing will be blown.

Lucy stealthily slips off her shoes and places them on the bench as she replies. "I'm doing fine. You?"

"Ugh, you have  _no_ idea how stressful my week has been! I woke up  _late_ -"

As Jenny prattles on, Lucy pulls back the curtain separating herself and Natsu as quietly as she can and steps in. Her demon looks surprised and half-ready to open his mouth and make a snide comment when she pushes him into a corner and presses a finger to her lips.

"What the fuck?" he mouths.

"If Jenny sees your legs, we're  _dead_ ," she whispers. "She's so nosy, you have no idea."

"I'm naked," he matches her tone. "You couldn't have just-"

Their outer curtain pulls back and Lucy almost slips on the tiles. The hot water pouring on her does nothing to abate the cold that shoots through her veins. Her heart thuds erratically, her lungs refuse to expand, and she can't feel Natsu's skin under her hand anymore. It's nothing short of a miracle that she's still standing, because she can't feel her legs, either.

"Sorry, I forgot my shampoo, figured I'd borrow yours but you're using it. I'll be back!"

The ten seconds it takes for Jenny to leave and the door to shut behind her are the longest that Lucy has ever lived through. A near-death experience, she thinks faintly. This is definitely what a near-death experience feels like, complete with the leaving this realm of existence aspect.

Natsu laughs.

She snaps her head around to glare at him. "See what I mean?! This isn't  _funny_!" Her heart has yet to calm down. The past few days have probably set her up for a lifetime of heart and blood pressure problems. Is it possible to sue demons for this sort of thing?

"Yeah, it is. You should have seen your  _face_!"

Lucy throws her hands up, and it's only then that she realizes that Natsu has been gripping her upper arms to keep her from falling over. No miracle, then, just a demon. She frowns when she spots the wet bandages still around his arm.

"You're gonna need to change those," she says, "Here, lemme-"

" _Don't_ ," Natsu warns. His hair, plastered to his face, frames his forest green eyes and darkens them. Humour returns to his expression as quickly as it had left, leaving Lucy with an odd sense of whiplash. How does he  _do_ that?

"We should go before Jenny comes back," she mumbles. "Get dry."

"Says the one in wet clothes." He points out as he accepts the towel.

Lucy groans.  _Shit_.


	7. English or Psychology

"Should we tell him?"

"It was such a small spike, it  _could_ be insignificant…"

"But do we really wanna take any chances when it comes to... _him_?"

"I can hear you," Cobra drawls from across the lab. "Spit it out. I don't like waiting."

One of the younger lab rats ( _assistants,_ he reminds himself,  _we don't want shit with DR again_ ), a poison specialist demon, clears her throat and points to one of the many monitors propped up against the wall. "There was a spike in activity in P1092's EEG."

Cobra folds the white cloth in his hands and places it on a steel table, pausing just long enough to make sure that his custom purple runes are activated around the bundle before making his way over to the duo. "Play back to when you noticed the spike," he orders. The lab assistant - Kinana, her nametag reads - nods and clicks away, pulling up the recording on the next screen.

"In the beta wave," Kinana says, tapping the anomaly. Cobra keeps his face purposefully blank as he eyes the spike. Normally, something so insignificant would be of no concern to him. Spikes and tiny jumps are par for course when it comes to dealing with comatose demons, and if someone of Cobra's calibre had to worry over  _every_  little detail in  _every_  single case then the whole lab would have fallen to pieces long ago without him around to supervise the shits running around helping him.

P1092 isn't  _just_ any normal case, however, so this spike is...troublesome, to say the least. Cobra feels his fingers twitch, itching to go into the room and  _poke around._  What will it take to replicate that same spike? To elicit any sort of reaction from this demon? How close to  _awake_ does the demon have to be for Cobra to be able to examine how it works  _normally_? Curiousity smothers his chest like smoke, tightening and inhibiting his ability to breathe, leaving him desperate for  _something_ to alleviate the smog within.

He just wants to  _know_.

"-er? Doctor?" Kinana calls again. Cobra blinks out of his thoughts, grunting in reply.

"Is it significant?" Kinana asks. "Is this a beta coma?"

"Not consistent enough," Cobra replies calmly. "Needs to be more continuous if you're to classify it as a beta coma. This is probably just a one-off, no reason to worry. Print this out for me and if anything like this happens again, call me - I want to be sure before we start tossing out classifications. Get me a blood test from P1092, it's been a while."

"Anything specific to look for?" The other rat (Mendy? Meldy? - he squints at her nametag -  _Meredy_ ) inquires. Cobra shakes his head. "Run all the tests. And get a CPF and MPF off P1092. Get his original baseline plus the results from his last tests for everything and compile it for me. And I want his EEG going back the past three months, printed."

"EEG going back three months, blood tests across the board, CPF, MPF, all the current findings for those three tests plus his baselines and his last test results for all three as well," Kinana parrots. "Anything else?"

Cobra pauses. "Coffee. Quad shot espresso."

"Rock-paper-scissors?" Meredy holds out her fist. Cobra rolls his eyes and starts for the door as the rats play for coffee duty. Once the door is firmly shut behind him, he pulls out his phone and hits speed-dial.

"You're going up to meet boss-man today, yeah? I got some results I need you to take to him. Meet me in the lobby of the research building."

* * *

Their trip to Mard's office that Friday is no easier the second time around, but it seems there is some celestial being looking upon her favourably because it's pissing enough rain outside to keep even the biggest of keeners indoors. Lucy had ensured to take extra precautions this time, having purchased the largest university-issued sweater possible for Natsu to put on to help cover his horns. Though they did poke at the cloth a little, they stayed relatively hidden.

"Miss Heartfilia. E.N.D.," Mard greets them politely at his office door.

"Hello, Professor G-"

"Yo, Mard!" Natsu yells, slinging an arm over Lucy's shoulders and popping his hood off. The blonde twitches, forcing her arm back down from where it was poised to elbow him in the gut. Violence will do her absolutely no favours.

Well, normally it will have done her no favours but judging by the look of 'end me now' on Mard's face, violence will get her a ten percent bump in her final grade.

"Natsu!" A cheery voice calls from behind Mard. Lucy has only a second to blink before a short, white-haired woman comes flying their way. "It's been so long!"

"Mira!" Natsu hugs the woman tightly, lifting her at least half a foot off the ground in his exuberance. Lucy winces in sympathy for the lady - Mira. The tendons in Natsu's hands are practically bulging, and she can only imagine the hell it's invoking on her ribs.

Mira pushes back and taps Natsu on the nose. "You are in  _so_ much trouble! Contracting with a drunk woman? Have you no shame?"

"Yeah, Natsu, no shame at all?" Lucy chimes in. The muscles of her mouth are working overtime to stay still and keep her from smiling. There's something horribly ironic about the  _King of Hell_  himself being unable to keep his own demons in line but a five-nothing  _model's_ scolding is enough to have him scuffing his shoes.  _Kodak moment_ , Lucy thinks to herself.

"Mard cleared it," Natsu says. Mira's smile goes sickly sweet for a second and the room temperature drops by about ten degrees. Lucy shivers. Perhaps  _model_ is putting it too lightly. High ranking ice demon, perhaps? Etherious, maybe. Ice etherious. She can see it; snow-white hair, icy blue eyes, smile so chilling the barometer takes a nosedive…

"And  _His Majesty_ got quite an earful from me about that. I haven't contracted a human in several centuries but I don't remember there being a clause about...never mind, back to the point." Mira whirls around to grasp Lucy's hands within her own. The smile on her face is genuine and so bright that Lucy loses all train of coherent thought.

"Hello! My name is Mirajane Strauss. Most people just call me Mira! It's a pleasure to meet you, Lucy!"

"It's nice to meet you, too," Lucy says. "How do you know Natsu? Do you belong to the same, uh...legion?"

"No, no!" Mira laughs. "I'm no Etherious. I'm the legion leader for take-over demons. I'm surprised you know this much, we don't normally tell humans about our power structures."

"Lucy's curious about  _everything_ ," Natsu says in an exaggerated tone of voice. "Seriously, she asks questions  _all the time_."

Lucy flushes and crosses her arms over her chest. There's something so accusatory about his tone underneath all the teasing that she feels her hackles rising. Is it  _criminal_ to be curious? He's a fucking demon, for crying out loud! There are no reputable textbooks out there about demons, and the internet is about as reliable as Sting when drunk - why resort to dumb measures when she can get information by word of mouth? Her fingernails are leaving lovely indentations in the flesh of her upper arms in her effort to keep herself from pushing him over.  _Maybe_ , Lucy thinks viciously,  _if I just_ accidentally  _tripped him…_

"Speaking of curiousity," Mard finally pipes up, "I have a proposition for you once you put this on." Lucy twists her head just in time to see Natsu get hit in the face by a bundle of white fabric. He pulls it off and furrows his brows in confusion. Once one looked past the scales, it was kind of a cute look, Lucy had to admit.

 _Wait, cute?!_ Lucy slaps her cheeks and shakes her head violently. Cute? Natsu? Her resident demonic pain in the ass? Fuck  _that_ , if Natsu was cute then she was a goddamn astrophysicist.  _Stress is making you think upside down and backwards, Lucy…_

"You okay, Lucy?" Natsu asks. "I read in one of your textbooks that doing weird shit like that is because of stress. Do you wanna cash in on your contract now? I can make the stress go away."

Lucy narrows her eyes and steps back, wracking her brain to see if Natsu ever mentioned telepathy being one of his talents. Fire, increased strength, and being an asshole (granted, that last one is more  _her_ interpretation) are all that come to mind, but she won't put it past him to omit something like  _telepathy,_ simply because of all the potential blackmail material he can gather on her if she doesn't have any defenses up. Cheeky little shit thinks he has the upper hand. He probably gloats at night when she's asleep, writing down notes on her dreams in his book in those foreign letters so she can't understand when she flips through.

_Not today, satan. Banana, banana, banana, banana, banana, banana…_

"I'm fine," she says stiffly. "I'm just...trying to wrap my head around this  _mess_. And no, I don't wanna use my contract."

Natsu rolls his eyes and mutters something like 'spoilsport' under his breath, looping the scarf in his hands around his neck. The air wavers around him for a second, like the area above a fire, and the horns, scales, and talon-nails are gone when Lucy blinks. He looks... _human_. A little odd with the pink hair, but human nonetheless. It rubs her the wrong in the same way that navigating a room with the furniture moved two inches to the right does. No matter how hard she tries to commit this new Natsu to memory, she still sees curved horns and silky scales.

"Ah, you look so adorably human!" Mira coos, pinching his cheek. "Look, Mard! He's all grown up, blending in with humans in a  _university_!"

"I should certainly hope so, considering he will be enrolling here in a week," Mard says. Lucy swears she shreds every muscle in her neck as she whips around to pin her professor with an incredulous stare.  _Natsu the demon_ in  _university_ as a  _student_? There's something so inherently wrong about that entire sentence she figures even a kindergartener can figure it out. She can't see him in  _any_ class whatsoever. He'll probably contract the professors and GA's and get them to give him the midterm and final answer keys in exchange for their  _deepest desires_. Perhaps he'll even sell the keys for and bring about the downfall of the university that way. Lucy shudders to think about the  _other_ kinds of havoc he can wreak in his tenure here. Sinkholes and traumatized students and raided cafeterias…

"I  _what_?" Natsu yells. "Hell no! I'm not wasting my time here, Mard! This is so  _annoying_! I just need to figure this dumb contract out, why can't I just stay in her room?"

"Because we need an excuse for you being seen on campus so often," the demon king replies. "And a little education has never harmed anyone. If Rogue is pursuing a biochemistry degree of his own volition, then you will, too. Pursue a degree, that is."

"It'll be so much fun!" Mira claps her hands. "You'll learn so much! I did when I went to university!"

"You went to uni?" Lucy asks, bewildered. How many demons have degrees? How many are enrolled in her school? The backs of her eyes throb painfully in the beginnings of a vicious headache. This is one secret circle...society...thing she could have gone her entire life without entering. It's not worth the midlife crises. Plural. Because this isn't just one Earth-shattering revelation, it's many; one after the other in a twisted,  _Volcano: the coast is toast_ -esque tectonic plate shift, leaving her world covered in fault lines and lava. She can either be Olber or Michael Roark, and right about now being Olber doesn't sound like a half bad idea. Shock will kill her before the lava swallows her whole, and then she won't have to deal with this demon-degree shit.

"Yup! Veterinary sciences!" Mira chirps. "It was my first degree and Mard's...third? We went to a university in Sin!"

"Law," Mard says with a glint in his eye. "One of the more entertaining periods of my existence."

"You guys just get degrees for fun?"

"It does get awfully bland down in Hell." Mard shrugs delicately. "It does not hurt to have several degrees for use on Earth."

"I'm not doing it," Natsu snaps. Lucy eyes the floor near his feet warily. The wood is starting to splinter and she swears she sees smoke.

"English or psychology," Mard replies.

"Why those two?"

"So either myself or Miss Heartfilia can keep an eye on you. Granted, it would be easier for her because she will be in more constant contact, but Miss Strauss suggested I provide you with more options to dupe you into thinking you have a choice."

Natsu scowls. "Fuck you."

"Psychology it is."

"Er, excuse me, but...won't he have to enroll for  _next year_? He can't just come in in the middle of the semester. I mean, he could probably apply for the winter session, but won't the contract situation be smoothed over by then so he can leave?" Lucy hopes her voice isn't as shaky as she feels it is in her throat. The thought of this  _hell_ going on for more than a few weeks has her feeling queasy. How long will her soul be on the verge of not being hers anymore?

"Exchange program," Mard says smoothly. "E.N.D's mannerisms are the equivalent to that of someone from Desierto. Nobody will think twice if I handle the matter and falsify transfer papers."

"And it will give  _me_ an excuse to drop by! I'll be around more often because I'm in charge of deciphering this contract of yours, so from now on I'm Natsu's contact in Fiore!" Mira shoots Lucy a good-natured smile. "You're probably gonna give up drinking after all this, huh?"

"Oh, you have no idea," Lucy mumbles. Right after tonight, though, because it's going to take an entire bottle of whiskey to even begin to digest today's events.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Fairy Tail, Hiro Mashima does


End file.
